Portrait of a Young Woman by Pierre Mignard

The model is wearing a dress adorned with precious stones, revealing a superb white arm – simple and free of lace – which points towards a musical score signed ‘M. Lambert’ – that is, the composer Michel Lambert (1610–1696), Master of Music to the King’s Chapel. The aria featured on the score was composed in 1666 to lyrics from *La Tullière*, published in 1689, which bears the title of a gallant aria: ‘J’avois passé près d'un jour sans la voir’. Pierre Mignard frequently uses the arm positions of the young women he portrays to dramatise his subject, as in *Portrait of a Lady of the Court*, held at the Carcassonne Museum of Fine Arts.

The theatrical quality of the pose stems as much from the drapery of the red cloak as from the contrasts in light, allowing the focus to be placed on both the face and the score, which is itself dramatised by the shadow cast by her arm. A kind of mysterious theatrical gravity surrounds the young woman, who could be the composer’s daughter, Madeleine Lambert (1642–1720), who married Lully, or one of his pupils, such as Anne de La Barre (1628–1688).

Pierre Mignard, a^17th-century French classical painter, is known for his portraits of the royal family and his contemporaries. He painted writers and women, including Molière and Bossuet, the Princess Palatine, the Duchess of Châtillon, the Countess of Fiesque, Julie d’Angennes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the Duchess of Ventadour, Madame de Montespan and Mademoiselle de La Vallière, Madame de Sévigné and Mademoiselle de Grignan, Mademoiselle de Fontanges, and even Louis XIV on ten occasions, whilst Le Brun enjoyed official omnipotence. His style, characterised by rounded forms, gentle and conventional expressions, and contrasting colours, appealed to his patrons.

He nevertheless had to face competition from Charles Le Brun, who regarded Pierre Mignard as a painter ‘without theory’. Mignard’s apprenticeship took place in Bourges before he went on to study the grand decorative works at Fontainebleau and then joined Vouet’s studio. He left for Italy in 1635 and remained there for twenty years, producing large-scale compositions, devotional paintings—including the Madonnas known as ‘mignardes’—and portraits in the Bolognese style. On his return to Paris in 1658, as a protégé of Mazarin, Mignard painted the king’s portrait and produced numerous large-scale decorative works in the mansions of the aristocracy.

Despite royal approval, Mignard repeatedly refused to join the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, but thanks to Louvois’s support, he supplanted Le Brun in the king’s favour and succeeded him as director of the Academy upon his death in 1690.